


A chance if you will

by BehindBrokenWindows



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Getting Together, Hera won't take no for an answer, Hurt Alexsandr Kallus, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Minor cuddling, Pregnancy, Talking, Zeb knows what he wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26996230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BehindBrokenWindows/pseuds/BehindBrokenWindows
Summary: It's Alexandre Kallus' turn to have a life changing midnight meeting with Hera Syndulla. He learns a secret in the process and perhaps - before she bashed his head in - gains the courage to do what he should have done weeks ago.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus & Hera Syndulla, Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios
Comments: 18
Kudos: 113





	A chance if you will

Kallus stumbled out of bed in a hurry, holding his breath as he clutched his stomach. He barely made it to the fresher in time, and it was already occupied.

Hera sat on the floor, head bowed over the toilet seat. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t warn her, didn’t have the presence of mind to realise that he was only wearing underwear in front of her. Didn’t even realise that she wasn’t wearing any more than him.

All he could do was wave at her, crumble to the floor right beside her and bow over the rim of the toilet as his dinner came back up. He heaved until tears were stinging in his eyes and Hera pushed him away by the shoulder. Her turn. He caught only a glimpse of her glistening cheeks.

For a while it was only that. The two of them, kneeling almost naked on the floor, emptying their stomachs until all that was left was acid.

Kallus managed to retrieve a glass from the sink and filled it with water for her to wash her mouth. He refilled it for himself and spat the rest of the water in the toilet.

He was shaking with cold sweat and his stomach was still cramping, but there was nothing more inside him. All he could do now was wait for the dry-heaving to stop.

“Hera?” he asked at last. His voice was barely a whisper in the dark room.

“I’m pregnant,” she hickuped, and started sobbing. Words stuck in his throat as he tried to wrap his mind around what she’d said. She was pregnant.

“Oh dear,” he muttered, and put his arms around her. Her sobbing only strengthened, even as she threw her long arms around his torso and clung to him like he was all that was left of this world. “My dear, my dear,” he hushed her, “you’re not alone. Hera, listen now, you’re not alone. We’re here for you. We will all be here for you whenever you need us. I promise you that, you will not have to face this alone.”

“I don’t know how far along I am,” she muttered through the tears. “Please don’t tell the others. I – I want to be sure that it’ll live.” She shuddered in his arms and grew weak. “I’m pregnant,” she moaned. “I haven’t said it out loud before. Oh – oh my, I can’t Alex.”

“Of course you can, Hera. But not if you don’t want to. I can help you, if you want to be rid of it, and we won’t tell anyone. But please, know that we will be here every step of the way. Your child will want for nothing.”

“Thank you,” she cried, and started shuddering again. “Thank you,” she muttered, over and over again until she was almost asleep there on the floor.

“Brush your teeth?” He helped her onto the toilet seat and gave her the brush. He brushed his too, even though he felt he barely had the energy to stand. “It will be alright, Hera. Trust me.”

*

She ambushed him at the first possible opportunity. The others were off somewhere getting into trouble most likely, and Kallus had been trying to hide under the ship, doing maintenance. She wasn’t slow in finding him.

“Why were you there?” Her voice was gentle, at least. And her eyes told him she wouldn’t push him if he didn’t want to talk about it.

He didn’t want to talk about it, but he probably should, so he came out from under the ship and sat down beside her on the grass.

It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear, the air was fresh but not too cold, and fields stretched as far as the eye could see.

“It’s not new, really,” he said. “When I was a child I would often throw up if I was very anxious or nervous. Mum said it would stop when I grew up, but I threw up the night before every exam ever had in the academy. When I grew more confident in my abilities it stopped altogether, for a while.

“Then… then Lasan happened.” He was shaking his head. “I spent the entire night on the fresher floor, and it felt like I was dying. That was… that was a rough couple of months.”

She looked at him with kindness and sympathy. At least it wasn’t pity. He kept going after she took his hand in hers. “It was good again, for a while. Until Bahryn. I could barely eat, I knew – I knew it would just come back up. And when I became Fulcrum – ” He laughed. “No wonder Thrawn beat me so easily, I had dropped at least five kilos. It was better when I joined the Rebellion. It felt – it felt right.”

“Yeah, we all noticed that actually. We just thought they didn’t feed you well in the Empire.”

“That also. The food on Yavin is truly extraordinary compared to the Empire’s fare. But it was more than that. For me.” She pulled her thumb across his knuckled soothingly, and he smiled into his lap.

“And now? Why now?” He took a deep breath and told her.

“Zeb.”

“Has he done anything? Said anything? You know he doesn’t resent you. You seem… fine to me. Is there something I should know?”

Kallus could almost laugh. “Zeb, dear Zeb. No, he hasn’t said anything, Hera. We’re fine. Perfectly fine. It’s just that –” He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t kriffing breathe, but he would say in anyway. “It’s just that I love him.”

“Alex, I think –”

“You don’t understand,” he gasped, lungs burning as he tried to hold himself together. “You don’t understand, Hera. It’s _Zeb_. He – _fuck_. What I did to him, what I did to his people and his planet, _I can’t_.”

“He knows all that too, Alex. He knows, and still he chooses to be with you, to be your friend. I think you should tell him, I think it’s long overdue that you two talk about this, because it’s been a while coming –”

“You think he would accept it? You think he would accept _me_?” Kallus said, and his voice barely sounded like his anymore. “Out of all the things that could happen, that would be the worst. If I knew he would reject me, turn me away, punch me from the sheer _audacity_ of my emotions, perhaps then I could tell him.” Her hand tightened around his and for a moment he hoped she would break him.

“He’s afraid that you see him as lesser.” The words brought him out of his own self-inflicted misery. “He’s afraid that you think all species are lesser than humans. He’s afraid you would balk at the idea of being in an interspecies relationship.”

“It’s not that,” Kallus grimaced, feeling sick. How – how could Zeb even think such a thing? Zeb, who was ten times the man he was, who was good, and intelligent, and strong? Zeb, who was all that was right with the galaxy, how dare he?

“It’s why he’s never pushed it, but if you were only to _talk to each other_.” Kallus was fiercely shaking his head.

“I can’t stand his acceptance. I can’t – I _can’t_ Hera, don’t you see?”

“Perhaps, if you thought a bit less of yourself,” she said, and now her voice was almost a growl. “Perhaps if you cared to listen to what he has been telling you all this time. Zeb hasn’t _forgiven_ Lasan, Alex. He never will. But he understands your side of it, your part of it. He sees it, and he sees the man you have become. Give him the courtesy, at least, of letting him speak. I never knew you for a coward. You owe him that much.”

Kallus didn’t eat dinner. He knew that Hera noticed, but was glad she didn’t bring it up. Perhaps she understood.

He wanted to throw up again, was shaking with it. Zeb had gone to their cabin already. Kallus gave him a few minutes. Or perhaps that was for himself. Zeb was sitting on the bottom bunk when he entered, feet on the floor as he turned the meteorite in his large hands.

Kallus went to him and sank to his knees in front of him, in supplication, or respect, or perhaps just because his legs couldn’t keep him upright anymore.

“Alex? Hey, you alright?”

“No,” he whispered. Sometimes he was. It came in waves, this guilt, this disgust with himself that made him want to slip away and never be seen by these people again, so he could never again stain them with his presence. “How do you stand it, Zeb? to be so near me, when all I want is to crawl out of my own skin? How do you do it?”

“What is this?” Zeb asked, sounding almost horrified.

“I don’t deserve it, Zeb. I don’t deserve to be in your presence. I don’t deserve your kindness or a second chance.” He couldn’t look up from his lap. He was on his knees in front of Zeb, offering him his neck, his life. And he couldn’t even look at him.

“Everyone who are willing to change deserve a chance to do so,” Zeb growled. “Doesn’t matter what you did. _Look at me_.” It was a command. Kallus had always been so good at following orders. “Everyone who’re willing to change deserve a chance to do so.”

“I’m not a good person, Zeb.”

“You’re better than you were. And every day you’re working to be better than you are. _That’s_ what matters, and you’re bloody relentless, Alex.” He couldn’t look at him, he _couldn’t_. Not with that fierceness in Zeb’s eyes. “You’re so brave,” Zeb muttered. “Not many can look at themselves like you did and decide to do something when they didn’t like what they saw. Not many people ever do. But you did. You went and fucking did it, Alex. And it made your life fall apart around you, I know that. But kriff, man, you’re still here, building it right back up, aren’t you? Brick by brick, Alex. Day by day.” Zeb smiled a bit – Kallus hadn’t even noticed that he’d looked up at him, but there was that pride, that fierce kindness and belief. Zeb’s hand was heavy on his neck, his thumb a bit rough on his cheek.

“I don’t deserve you,” Kallus whispered. “I don’t deserve to love you.” Zeb’s hold tightened and he closed his eyes.

“Doesn’t matter what you kriffing deserve, does it? What about me? What do I deserve? Why do you get to decide that, huh? Idiot.” Kallus smiled, just barely. Yes, he couldn’t argue with that last part. “So, we take it day by day, yeah? Brick by brick? I’ll build you right up, because I want to, and you’ll let me because you can’t help yourself, because you love me. Right?”

“Zeb –”

“ _Right_? Because I care for you too, asshole. And I’m not getting any younger, and you’re not getting any smarter, apparently.”

“I need time.”

“I know that, I know. I’ll give you whatever you ask for so long as I’m willing, alright? So don’t you go ahead and think that I do this as a favor or some shit. I do what I want, Alex, and what I want right now is to see us through this, and this bloody war. And I’ll be privileged if that’s what you want too. Alright?”

“Alright,” Kallus whispered, disbelieving as he looked up at Zeb and saw only burning truth in his face.

“That’s a good man,” Zeb muttered and brushed his face with that large thumb again. “My good man, eh?”

“Yes,” Kallus said into his palm before he kissed him, right there in the middle of his hand, on his knees before him. “Yes,” He breathed again as he leaned forward and hid his face in Zeb’s thighs. His shoulders were trembling.

“Good,” Zeb purred, and stroked his hair until the trembling subsided and Kallus could finally breathe again. “Come here.” Zeb arranged them on the bed with a bit of shuffling and muttered about how stupid he was, how beautiful and brave and dumb he was until Kallus could finally sleep easy in his arms.

It was a long road, perhaps, and slow going to boot. But they’d be going together, and Zeb was strong enough for both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> My first array into the Star Wars Rebels fandom. I watched Clone Wars (that ending, man), then I watched Rebels and was _shook_ by how much better it was. Damn, the arcs in this show, holy cow. They really _did that_ didn't they?
> 
> Whew.
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment, it makes my day! And let me know if you want a sequel, there are so many options here!


End file.
